Warning: Catus is not ready for the 6.0 pre-patch although it will probably be available for WoD release, along with my new app Apparatus and open source libraries: WarBase, WarDBC, and WarKit. The current Catus application is being retired and getting completely replaced by brand new code.

Catus was written in Java so it can run on any platform that can run the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Catus has been tested on both Mac and Win7. You can download the latest JRE here: http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp

Catus needs to download a lot of data from the internet: it pulls Armory data from Blizzard, Item data from Blizzard and Wowhead, Stat data from SimulationCraft, and some miscellaneous junk off my own website. It will periodically refresh some of these sources of information at various frequencies (minutes to a few days). Catus will however work offline once you've collected the necessary information.

If anyone has any questions, comments, bugs or w/e about Catus or Zephyrus, please post them in this thread!

First Launch1. Download latest Zephyrus2. Extract it somewhere (do not launch it from the compressed archive)3. Open it (if you do not have Java, download the JRE)4. Let it download necessary resources (this only needs to happen once)

Simple Reforge Instructions1. Set your region, enter your characters name, hit return (or click Import)2. Uncheck all enchants and uncheck change gems (so we only search for reforgings)3. Click Reforge4. If it errors, raise the range field to a larger number.5. Solutions should appear in a popup menu, it will autoselect the best choice.6. Click "Minimize Cost" after finding a satisfactory solution to reduce the number of changes required.7. Click "Export Reforgerade" to get reforge instructions. 8. Click "Shopping List" to get gem/enchant differences.9. Click "Compare to Armory" to see complete list of changes.

Last edited by raffy on Sun Jul 21, 2013 4:32 pm, edited 10 times in total.

Was waiting for an official thread! First off, I have to say I think you're completely insane in how much motivation you have for doing this, I can't believe it's been almost 6 months since you started and it's incredible how much you've got done in that time. Now I have a couple questions:

Would you consider merging the "Reforge 1:1:1" button into the "Reforge" button? I found myself occasionally accidentally hitting the wrong one and then there's also no way to stop a reforge session after it's started. You could modify the "Detected" message to state that the Reforge button has automatically changed algorithms.

I understand the reforge thoroughness setting states its random, but it seems a little strange that I got a better solution using "Slow" than "Very Very Slow" despite it taking significantly less time. Just luck of the draw or is there something meaningful there?

Could you briefly explain what exactly it means by random? Does it just generate a boatload of random solutions and then throw out all the ones that don't meet constraints and compare them to each other?

Edit: Just doing some poking around and noticed that when you use the "Self" preset under group buffs it only enables Stats, not Crit. Herbalism and Berserking should probably be checked by default anytime they're enabled. In the "Internal Features" section the SR PvP bonus can probably be removed since that never made it to live.

Thanks. Progress was much faster at the beginning because, at that time, I didn't realize what I was getting myself into. I got slowed down immensely when I started writing a more advanced simulator that had BrawlScript support (so you can add mechanics similar like BigWigs, but in reverse, so we can move beyond Patchwerk sims) but I put that on pause, as I've been having a lot of fun in ToT lately (especially with the Rune). I also starting doing arena on both Edgy and my new WW Monk Iota.

I think I'll change the reforger interface in the next update to something like 3 tabs:- 2 buttons for typical (Mastery) or (1:1:1), fully automatic, no settings- the more advanced interface for generic reforging- the more advanced interface for 1:1:1 reforging

Latest Catus, has progress bar and you can cancel it (by closing that mini window.)

Fast, Slow, and Very Slow are just time-related settings. It's random as in I'm just brute force searching the space of possible reforgings -- except for 1:1:1, this space is like 500 billion permutations -- so I approximate it by just doing a couple billion.https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/298 ... xample.txtYou can think of each "dimension" in this space as set of possible reforgings for a piece of gear:

Raffy from a user perspective I would love a visual addition to gear frame if you need to reforge certain piece after doing the reforge simulation. This way would be easier to distinguish which pieces need reforge and which ones are already done. Something like highlightning gear piece in red, entire frame for example, would be helpfull.

Thinking about features and RoRo. Might be hard for me to explainCould you add a a theoretical window of best possible reforge with RoRo? Like a simple [Mastery+1 >= Haste = Crit] while keeping Hit/Exp cap.This would help a bit to tell how far are 'we' from perfect.

Above could also help possible regeming in a scenario if (Mastery>160+ = Haste+Crit). This information tells me that I can fit 1 orange gem without POSSIBLY breaking the rule. Becouse orange 2ndary stats are 160.

Oh, just remembered. Is it feasible to automatically set the actual calculation stuff (Reforging and Simming) to a lower process priority without impeding performance? Setting the process to "Below Normal" priority manually works but if I don't then it basically lags the rest of my applications that are doing anything remotely CPU intensive for the duration of the calculations.

For 1:1:1, I was thinking about adding a "Change all orange gems to lowest unreforged stat" button, since that seems to always produce the best results. I also need some quick way of checking the lowest possible hit/exp, to see if your hit is over the cap, regardless of how you reforge. This information is printed in the reforge log, but it should be available w/o waiting.

I can add a Comparison feature. Probably something like: you have a button that lets you snapshot your current profile. And then another button, that compares the snapshot to whatever the current profile is showing, and gives you a detailed print out of what's different. And then also, a button that compares the current profile to the Import from Armory profile (ie. compare to live). So 3 buttons: Save for Compare, Compare to Save, Compare to Armory, and a textual dump of everything that has changed, gear, gems, enchants, tinkers, and stat delta. Maybe I can inline the comparison with icons and stuff so it's pretty.

I noticed on Windows, the reforger tanks the machine; it's much more well-behaived on Mac. I'm spawning 1 thread per logical core. I can add a thread count popup menu and also lower the priority on those threads. (Made these changes now, will be in next version.)

raffy wrote:For 1:1:1, I was thinking about adding a "Change all orange gems to lowest unreforged stat" button, since that seems to always produce the best results. I also need some quick way of checking the lowest possible hit/exp, to see if your hit is over the cap, regardless of how you reforge.

Actually, I spent roughly 4h trying to maximize my rune proc for past 2 days. It is so complicated stuff that you have to do it (geming than reforging - you can add even enchants) in baby steps. 1 by 1, than 2 by 2 etc trying to get as close as possible to M+1>=H=C.

The results were so spread that I don't see a reason to try to automaticly set some range of geming becouse the reforging makes it compete difference in the very end. Resource wise, I don't even think it is remotely possible to simulate best possible geming/reforging/enchanting. The amount of variables will be sick and simulation power required will be enourmous.

After those 4 hours I got my haste+crit to within 49 stats total but by forcing non exp cap by 14 points I gained roughly 150-200 extra mastery for rune proc.

My reliable experience was, that if you are not hitcapped by default on gear, use purple gems especially in a scenario like tier legs where its yellow+blue and 120agi bonus. In rest skip it.

Sorcerer wrote:Resource wise, I don't even think it is remotely possible to simulate best possible geming/reforging/enchanting. The amount of variables will be sick and simulation power required will be enourmous.

Raffy specifically said the random reforging isn't optimized at all though. I don't know how it would work for rune, but let's say you're trying to do a typical T14 reforge strat:

You know that the only constraints on the outcome you're looking to match is Hit and Expertise being above a certain amount, so generally any option that reforges into or out of Hit or Exp will be a valid option, although there is some elimination you can do (eg, if your hit is 4250 or above then reforging any piece into hit is pointless, as well as not reforging out of hit on a piece) but generally not much optimization there.

Beyond that, you know that mastery > crit > haste, so any solution that involves reforging Mastery -> Crit, Mastery -> Haste, or Crit -> Haste is also not worth pursuing. Taking those things into you account you can significantly reduce the amount of viable reforge options per piece:

And that has reduced the number of possible outcomes by many many magnitudes. Now I'm not sure how well these things apply to rune (almost definitely not nearly as well) but even if it can't reduced to the point where you can exhaust every possibility then you can still reduce it significantly enough that the chance of finding the optimal solution in a given run is fairly good.

Outside of RoRo, the entire thing is a joke. It all comes down to this shit design trinket in my eyes.

For RoRo holy grail stat ratio having to sim entire gear with all possible scenarios leaves with tremednous amount of options if you add - gems (for 1 slot in orange you have 3 options) - reforge (for each piece you have full spectrum agixx if you want to go for theoretical perfect stat ratio as going for perfect you might reforge in/out same stat here and there to find the equilibrium for RoRo - its simple without it)- enchants (not much choices but still, glove enchant 2 options as cloak one you are unlikely to go for hit)- 14-15 gear slots

I kinda passed my math grades, but assuming above, how many possible scenarios we have (assuming all gear options including everything)? Probably few milions at worst. It is kinda like playing lotto if you want to be certain for a win. Have to bet all combos.

This is how normal reforging works, since I can be sure that some reforge permutations would never be chosen. You can see this in action, if you do like Hit/Exp: LowerBound 2550, Mastery/Haste/Crit: Weight 10/9/8 and click the normal reforge button with [x] Save Log. Each peice of gear will be listed, and some of the possible reforgings will be ignored/cancelled.

But for 1:1:1, I can't make these optimizations. I do check Hit/Exp first, but I don't see how I can intelligently cancel out some of the permutations since I might need to reforge 1 piece of gear Haste -> Crit and another Crit -> Haste.

What metric are you using to compare solutions? Simply just finding the one with the lowest m*2-h-c value? Perhaps you could artificially impose a lower and upper bound on the mastery level based on something like the perfect distribution +/- 10%?

Aggixx suggested I dl your program and give it a try to help me with reforging. I just got lfr RoR today and am not having any luck using Wowreforge and referring to Aggixx' video. I'm not the brightest crayon in the box with computers so a little help with your program would be greatly appreciated. I've downloaded Catus5 from the link in this thread and extracted the files. Now what do I do with it? I opened the Catus folder but don't see any way of starting it. Would if be possible to include step-by-step instructions for the technologically challenged?

First, make sure you have Java installed. If you're don't or you're not sure, go here, download, and run the file to install it. After that's done you want to double click the file called "Catus" or "Catus.jar" in the Catus folder you extracted from the zip file (it should have a java icon). If you did everything right you should see a small window popup with a loading bar, and after it's done the main Catus window should open.

Edit: @raffy: After thinking about it it might make more sense to have a boundary set of something like [1, 1.15]*N. I don't think it's possible for M>C and M>H and M<N. And of course the actual margin is arbitrary, 1.15 is probably entirely too much, thats about 800-1000 rating in most sets of gear, I imagine the best solution for any set of gear with enough flexibility will lie within 100 rating of N. I imagine you could probably pull a bunch of different test sets from armory and see what value provides the best solution across the board.

Changes:- Improved Set Bonus interface, added hyperlink- Moved "Reforge 1:1:1" button to top, now completely ignores below settings and assumes 2550 Hit/Exp (this will be improved - again later once I can figured out a better interface. I'd like to have a 1-button option for Max(Mastery) reforging as well)- Added Gear Differences Calculator- You can snapshot the current profile and swap between the snapshot and the current profile- You can compute the diff between any two of: Current/Snapshot/Armory- Added Reforgerade Import/Export (removed Default export option)- Added Import/Export for Gear (in Catus CompactRep form)- Most textual output dumps to a Catus window, rather than default Text Editor- Reforger thread priority is set to low- You can specify the number of cores for the reforger to use

I'm trying to finish a simple "X better than Y" thing and then I'll release v6.

Sabrac wrote:Is there a way to say 'reforge 1:1:1 but put crit above haste'?

Yeah I agree, this is desirable, I also offspec tank.

Next Catus update will have a new 1:1:1 reforger thats way more optimized (rather than just being complex settings on top of my generic reforger) that is specifically designed for Feral/Monk. It should produce basically optimal results on your first try. I will include an option to make Crit > Haste as well.

It also will present multiple solutions, rather than just one (but I haven't coded this part yet.)

I'll release v6 this weekend.

Edit: for example, here is a set of slightly improved reforgings for Aggixx, although there isn't much you can do about that excessive hit If anyone has been having trouble getting a good reforging, post your armory, and I'll produce a set of solutions. This will help me find any bugs too.

Thank you very much for this program; it has been extremely useful whenever I get a new piece of gear!

I'm still using an older version, though, as I much prefer being able to adjust my hit and expertise; I've always been a big fan of slightly under cap than over. Thanks to your reforger, my other three secondaries are within 4 points of each other : )

Is there an option to add sockets to gear? I have several weapons that I'm playing around with and would like to be able to put them in correctly without buying an Eye for each, if possible.

What do you mean add sockets? Like beyond what you can actually do in-game? I think older Catus didn't apply extra weapon socket to ToT weapons (I thought it was just Sha touched), but last few updates should give you proper sockets: extra on Weapon, extra on Wrist/Hand with BS, and extra on Belt (assumed buckle.)

Technically, you can enable any piece of gear to have an extra socket, but I don't directly support this. The simplest way would be, exporting your gear (kinda of hidden feature), by going to menu: "Edit > Copy CompactGear". Then, make a new file in PremadeGear folder, inside Catus, like "ExtraSocketProfile.txt" and paste the CompactGear code. Each line of code in CompactGear form, is a gear slot:

For any slot that you'd like an extra socket just add the word Socket.When you change back to Catus, the Suggestions menu in the Equip pane should have ExtraSocketProfile listed. If you select it, it should load the gear with your modifications.

raffy wrote:If anyone has been having trouble getting a good reforging, post your armory, and I'll produce a set of solutions. This will help me find any bugs too.

H again Raffy. Would you mind giving mine a go? I tried to post this yesterday but the TFD spam filters won't let me use the link to my armory so just look for Tyrrae @ Stormrage, US. Hopefully this post will go through.I got the tier helm, legendary meta and a weapon so far this week. Not the ones I really wanted but they helped me get rid of some excess expertise so a win for me regardless. Still waaaaaaay over hit cap though, lol. We started working on Lei Shen last night and made some good progress. With a bit of luck maybe I'll have better RoR soon. The best result I could get with my current gear is a spread of 23. At the time I thought it was pretty good, but if you think you can get a better result then by all means, have at it! Hit = 2867Expertise = 2551Mastery = 5602Haste = 5601Critical Strike = 5579Total: 22200

Since the new reforger is so fast, it's much easier to play with various enchants/gems. But it looks like you've already changed all of your enchants/gems away from hit, so the only way to improve your reforge is changing a piece of gear.